KrissiK Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 So, my fifth grader and I are doing FFLatin and we are enjoying it. It's an excellent curriculum, but it is hard (pluperfect, anyone? I'd never heard the word before doing this program, much less knew what tense it was) and I'm just wondering if anyone truly gets it done in a year and is able, then, to do Second Form Latin the next year? My DS is reasonably bright and he doesn't balk at doing Latin, in fact, he does like it, but he tends to need a lot of review and so do I. I'm a little worried. Are we going to finish this in a year? In the great scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, I'm more concerned with mastery, so we'll take our time, but I'm just wondering if anyone is able to complete it in a year. Or should I just content myself with him making his way through Third Form by 8th grade and then....who knows. The penciled in plan is for him to go to Christian High School, so that will be the end of Latin for him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenaj Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 I'm on lesson 10 this week of First Form with my sixth grader and my 4th grader. We are taking it slow - about six days per lesson. One thing that has helped my kids a lot is that I've set up vocabulary quizzes for them on Quizlet.com. It makes all the vocab much more fun for them. My fourth grader could honestly probably go much faster because he's a sponge at this stuff but I've slowed him down to keep my sixth grader with us (at least for now - that's a separate issue). I've no goal as to how long it will take us. We took about 1 year and 4 months to finish Latina Christiana 1 so it may take us the same amount of time to finish these books. We'll just keep plugging along and backing up and reviewing as we go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mbelle Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 We are on lesson 10 as well, with an 8th grader and 6th grader. I think it is just going to require persistent review to make each tense "stick". My kids are doing very well on the tests. My son is in the on-line class and my daughter is doing the independent study. I think this keeps us steadily moving forward. Looking ahead to the nouns in the next unit, I can tell we will need to be dedicated to repeated drilling to keep it all sorted out. For my oldest I just wanted her to have a year of Latin before High School and now I think she will stick to it through the forms to get 2-3 credits. She still plans to study Italian as well. We shall see how it plays out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 I agree that FF is hard. It hurts *my* head! DD#1 is scheduled to finish Lesson 9 this week. I finished Lesson 13. (My goal is to stay ahead of her, but I do several lessons in one sitting, so I have to spend some of my time reviewing because I only do it once a month or so.) She's only scheduled to make it through Lesson 28 this school year. Unsure if she'll continue over summer or pick it up again in the fall. (Hoping for the former.) I do think the classes make it easier to manage. (I consider it.) I've heard of one family switching over to the online Henle classes (through MP). I don't have a lot of personal experience yet. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Keeping my ears open because we start First Form in about a month. We are only about five lessons from finishing LC1. I'm going to have to go slower with one child, because he has trouble with remembering the vocabulary (no trouble with the grammar!) and the other child is frankly going to blow my doors off. He's already miffed with me because we are not declining third declension yet and he's champing at the bit. It's going to be HARD to keep up with him. Both boys are fourth grade, so I had planned to take it slow. But keeping up with Speedy is quite a challenge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clear Creek Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 My oldest took a full year to finish FFL (including the summer). I didn't have her finish a lesson in five days, though; she did one worksheet or quiz per day. She is doing the same with SFL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleeplessnights Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 My 4th grade son started First Form in January and we just finished Quiz 32 today. Two lessons + final test left, so I think we're going to make it. Did you guys do Latina Christiana first? At least half the vocab we learned last year, so that helped a lot. It was nice to switch from verbs to nouns to verbs. During the noun units, you can solidify your verbs knowledge before you start them up again later. And then you can solidify nouns while you do verbs again. The second conjugation verbs at the end of the book are very easy, so you've just got to make it over the hump! What's worked well for us this year is to do Latin every day. Start the lesson off with the conjugation/declension recitation and then do the grammar recitation every day. Then we have done every page in the workbook. It's a lot of writing, but it really helps to cement it in your brain. When we've needed to slow down, we took an extra day or two on that lesson. Usually the lesson after a difficult one would be less taxing, so we haven't been overwhelmed. It's a lot to learn, but it's doable if you put the hours in. But it's definitely more important to get this foundation knowledge down before you move on, so take the time you need! Best of luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sueh16 Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Sleepless nights, you said, " During the noun units, you can solidify your verbs knowledge before you start them up again later. And then you can solidify nouns while you do verbs again. The second conjugation verbs at the end of the book are very easy, so you've just got to make it over the hump!" I'm glad to read that because my dd is preparing for the Units 1and 2 test right now, and we're looking forward to moving on to nouns, which she has already studied in her previous Latin program. I think keeping track of all the verb forms is hard. DD can rattle them off in Latin, but sometimes has trouble remembering what each tense means in English, especially imperfect, pluperfect and future perfect. I'm the opposite. I know the English, but sometimes confuse the different endings in Latin! I'm glad to hear that FFL gets easier after Unit 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mlbuchina Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 I planned on moving my dd10 into FF when we finish LC1, but it feels like we are never going to finish LC. I cannot seem to get the lessons in. :( Hearing that FF is hard, doesn't give me much hope that Latin will stay in our studies much longer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Michele - It is hard, but it seems it isn't as hard for the kids as for (some of us) adults. DD#1 is doing really well & moving through nicely. You'll be fine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 It helps to get Latin done first thing for us. We start with recitation, then take a part of the lesson and work on it. And I agree with RootAnn, the boys make it look easy most of the time, while I try to pretend I'm not looking at the book to make sure I've got it down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted November 20, 2013 Author Share Posted November 20, 2013 Michele - It is hard, but it seems it isn't as hard for the kids as for (some of us) adults. DD#1 is doing really well & moving through nicely. You'll be fine!This is true. I seem to have a harder time than he is. We do recitations every day, we cover everything every day, but I was sitting there yesterday, helping him diagram a sentence in Latin and I'm thinking, "ok, my 5th grader is diagramming a sentence in Latin" and I just felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I'm glad I'm not the only one. He has gone through both Prima Latina and LC1, so he does pretty well with the vocabulary, it's just all those darn verb tenses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 This is true. I seem to have a harder time than he is. We do recitations every day, we cover everything every day, but I was sitting there yesterday, helping him diagram a sentence in Latin and I'm thinking, "ok, my 5th grader is diagramming a sentence in Latin" and I just felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I'm glad I'm not the only one. He has gone through both Prima Latina and LC1, so he does pretty well with the vocabulary, it's just all those darn verb tenses. The models are in the back of the text book. Once you've got those, it's not so tough. I'm glad we opted for the online class. It's kept T on track and she enjoys the games they play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted November 20, 2013 Author Share Posted November 20, 2013 The models are in the back of the text book. Once you've got those, it's not so tough. I'm glad we opted for the online class. It's kept T on track and she enjoys the games they play. I will definitely keep that in mind as an option for next year. I can barely keep up with First Form, although I do enjoy it and I wish I had more time to study it. It's like a puzzle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsiew Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 We started FF in 6th grade. We are still finishing it up. I decided not to push so hard to get through the book and my ds appreciates that. Maybe if we were more "Latin centered" I would push harder, but for us it's an extra. He'll start 2nd Form within the next month or so... I wouldn't stress over it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bethben Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 We made it through FF Latin 1 and halfway through Second Form and then quit. I couldn't help ds and couldn't keep up myself. It was adding too much stress to an already stressed life and I just knew I couldn't continue. I did make up games here: http://www.purposegames.com/search?q=first+form+latin the games did help ds learn the vocabulary, but it's another one of those classes I just need to outsource eventually. Beth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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